Cho Oyu: Pavle Kozjek solo's new route up SE Face

On 02/10/2006 Pavle Kozjek from Slovenia climbed a new route solo up the South East Face of Cho Oyu (8201m).

Cho Oyu solo via a new route up the South East Face. First attempt, in slightly over 14 hours, from ABC past a rocky V- crux at 7200m. Or put in other words: the lightest alpine style possible, the maximum result with the minimum "clamour". All this happened on 2 October and the man behind this extraordinary achievement is Pavle Kozjek, the 47 year-old Slovenien mountaineer not new to feats of this genre: “Los rapidos”, the name of his new route on Peru's Siula Grande didn’t come about by chance...

Spanish desnivel.es gives details about the new route, which takes a line to the left of the Japanese Yamanoi route to join the Polish ridge up the 8201m high summit. This results in 1100m of virgin terrain, plus the 900m long crest. It's worth remembering that Kozjek encountered the crux at 7200m, a rocky section graded V- to the right of a large ice drip.

Pavle Kozjek left ABC at 3.30 and reached the crest at 10.00am. From here he waded through deep snow to reach the summit at 6.00pm, before descending the normal route to Camp 2 at 7000m. Fantastic. We'll find out more in the future.